Hearthstone Curse of Naxxramas Military Quarter Review

Another week, another wing for Curse of Naxxramas. The Military Quarter has just come out and so, as in previous weeks, here is the rundown of what players will encounter inside.

Let’s start with the class challenges, which seem to be getting more difficult with each passing week (I actually failed a challenge once), and yet remain easily beatable if you use your cards responsibly. Firstly, we have the Shaman challenge, where you get to experience the awesome power of the Earth Elemental/Rebirth combo. It’s an easy challenge and the opponent’s basic gimmick is that most of his creatures have a deathrattle by which you receive a minion with 0 attack, but which does 1 damage to you every turn. The card received for completing this challenge:

A 2-cost Shadowstep, which resummons the minion for free. Could be used in some powerful combos with Charge creatures, Windfury and Rockbiter Weapon

Next up, we have the Warlock challenge, in which you get to fully utilize the new Voidcaller card to summon free demons. You basically have a Demonlock with a few utility spells thrown in. You get most of the Demons (probably all of them, I haven’t seen the whole deck) including Jaraxxus. Now, I have talked about the Voidcaller before in a previous article, and my opinion it can lead to some pretty insane combos, especially with Baron Rivendare. As for the difficulty, it’s the first time I was defeated, but that was mostly due to mismanaging my minions.

This might make the Demonlock a viable constructed option yet again.

Let’s move on to the main attraction, the 3 raid bosses. First up, we have the Death Knight trainer, Instructor Razuvious, with an overpowered Fireblast as ability.

The most interesting thing about this guy is opening up the possibility of Death Knight as a new class in future expansions (insofar as designing a Runeblade weapon). His starting deck contains 2 0/7 taunts which you can steal with a 1 cost spell, given to you in the starting hand. This leads to interesting strategies of deciding the right turn to steal and buff them. It is also worth mentioning that his Runeblade does normal damage to minions and double to the hero. Throw in a Spiteful Smith and he can to 14 damage to our hero by just one swing. The card you get from whopping this guy is Dancing Swords:

4/4 for 3 is not that bad, however the deathrattle is a pretty inconvenient one.

Next up, we find Gothik the Harverster, the primary agricultural leader of the Naxxramas collective. His cucumbers are sublime. Also, he can draw a card for 2 mana.

He has a lot of minions which, when killed, will place on your part of the board a 0/n (where n is somewhere between 2 and 6) which does 1 damage to your hero each turn. This makes this guy susceptible to buff decks. Bloodlust is especially good after you fill the board with these min ions. This promoter of organic farming, when buried in his own pumpkin patch, will cough up Spectral Knight.

A Yeti with 1 more health and which costs 1 more mana, untargetable. Especially powerful when your opponent’s board is clear.

The last challenger this week is a quartet. The 4 Horsemen are a weird concept for a Naxx boss, however that’s what makes them interesting. (BTW, his ability is quite useless).

So we start off with a boss with 7 health and 3 1/7 minions (the 4 knights). The kicker here is that you can’t damage the main boss before getting rid of the others. That means that the main knight can equip a weapon and kill any of your minions without dealing damage to himself while any of the other 3 are alive. This boss also features some Paladin secrets and an ability which buffs the 3 knights plus his equipped weapon. All in all, a pretty entertaining boss. The last 2 cards which are unlocked after defeating these guys are Deathlord and the leader of the knights, Baron Rivendare himself.

A great early game taunt, although would you risk putting an Ysera or Ragnaros on your opponent’s board on turn 4? This is by far the most extreme new card when it comes to value/risk ratio.

The most obvious comparison would be the Cult Master, in the sense that you place this on the board right before you sack some minions with Deathrattles. Can also be used for crazy combos.

Before we end this review, here are the hero abilities on Heroic:

The first 2 bosses get slightly buffed. Also, the first one’s weapon now does 10 damage. 20 if he hits the face. The difficulty is the same since the other 2 weeks. You need a plan for each of them.

Overall, what did we get this week? Two class cards which can lead to powerful combos, an overpowered Fairy Dragon, 2 cards with serious drawbacks when it comes to the Deathrattle and a legendary which might spawn the Deathrattle decks. Also, a boss the likes of which we haven’t seen up until now, some Death Knight teasers (please Blizzard, make DK a playable class) and an organic farmer which gives you minions which stab you in the face each turn. Heroic mode is still difficult and the class challenges are a bit harder. All in all, the Military Quarter is a pleasant experience with interesting bosses and decent cards. Can’t wait for the last 2 wings.

I'm an engineer, currently employed at a financial software company. My interests include gaming, LPing and, of course, reviewing, but also game dev and graphics. Also, in the past I've dabbled in amateur photography, reviewing movies and writing short stories and blog posts. I am also a huge Song of Ice and Fire fan, but that's beside the point. Youtube Channel, Deviantart , Google + , Twitter